Howdy ‘potential thief’
Since when has it been ok to steal
something?
All those years attending Sunday school
where it was rammed into you ‘thou shalt
not steal’ – could they be wrong?
Well let’s look at that. I’m thinkin’ there’s
stealing and then there’s ‘stealing’.
Surely the parenthesis lightens this horrendous
crime a little? It’s a bit like a lie versus a ‘little
white lie’; isn’t it?
Let’s cut to the mustard, stealing is
a crime. No question about it. If you do the crime,
you should do the time.
BUT
to me ‘stealing’ is a softer, lesser ‘crime’ that goes on
everyday in society, mostly unnoticed and without
penalty
ON THE PROVISO
certain acknowledgements occur.
Like acknowledging the owner of the ‘thing’ you
are stealing.
A simple thanks is sufficient usually and maybe a
link to that person, their article or whatever you’re
stealing would be great.
I see ‘stealing’ as borrowing – the little white lie –
of its big bad brother, go to jail and throw away
the key, crime.
Here’s an example of what I mean. I’m a copywriter
and when I want to sound super intelligent, up my status
to an A lister, I start borrowing headlines, statements or
articles of gurus – like ….say…. David Ogilvy for example,
the Godfather of advertising.
He wrote a cracker ad for Rolls Royce with this headline
“At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls
Royce is the sound of the electric clock”
Brilliant stuff. You can see the full article here
Such a great headline that when a real estate client asked
me to write an article for him, I ‘stole’ this headline and
came up with
“In 30 days the only word you want to hear is SOLD”
It must have been a decent adaptation as my article for
the real estate dude got him over 3000 readers. BOOM!
Headlines are important. If they suck nobody
will read your article.
But coming up with headlines that’ll suck the eye balls out
your prospects head is difficult. Sometimes you need to ‘steal’
OR
grab my FREE book 101 Headlines That Crush It
Go grab it now and steal your heart away my friend.
Until Next Time
Greg ‘ I’m not a thief just a borrower’ Reed